Portable data carriers, in particular in the form of chip cards, key pendants or card tokens, having a display are used as identification cards, credit cards, telephone cards or the like, and as so-called “electronic purses” for cashless payments.
It has been found that a construction of chip cards having a display by the multi-layer process, by which a plurality of layers of plastic foils are joined into a card body under pressure and heat, is technically elaborate and cost-intensive. The functional layers of the display must be inserted into the particular layers during the production process and are therefore subjected to a high pressure load which can already damage or even destroy the display during production.
DE 102 10 606 A1 describes a display module wherein a control chip module is contacted directly onto a display substrate. The control chip module comprises the control electronics for controlling the individual elements of the display. The control chip is contacted on a conducting path arrangement and protected from environmental influences and mechanical stresses by a potting compound. The display module can be configured as a cartridge which can be inserted into the chip card and removed therefrom by a user. A device for electronically contacting an integrated circuit of the chip card to the display module must be provided separately in the chip card.
EP 1 411 467 A1 describes a chip card possessing outside a main bending line of the chip card a common cavity for a chip module and a display, the chip module comprising a contact interface and an integrated circuit contacted thereto. The chip module and the display are electronically interconnected and can be cast into a uniform module which is then inserted into the common cavity of the chip card as one component. The electronic contacting of display and integrated circuit is already configured in the uniform module. Because of its spatial extension, primarily the uniform module into which chip module and display are cast, despite being disposed outside the main bending line of the chip card, is still susceptible to damage by bending loads acting on the chip card.